Children of the Storm - Elizabeth Peters [39]
Emerson is a very large person, but his bulk was not sufficient to conceal completely the man who faced him. I saw a head of black hair and the shape of a shoulder covered in brown tweed. It was enough. I sprang to my feet. Emerson shifted position; he was trying, I think, to block the doorway, but the visitor pretended to take it for an invitation to enter, and slipped neatly past him.
I recognized the tweed suit as one he had borrowed from Ramses on a previous occasion, and never returned. A black beard and mustache hid the lower part of his face; the upper part was transformed by the waving locks that fell across his high brow, and by a pair of tinted eyeglasses that darkened his ambiguously colored eyes to brown. They swept the room in a quick, comprehensive survey; and the bearded lips parted in a smile.
“How good to see you, brother,” he exclaimed, clasping Emerson’s palsied hand. “And the rest of the family, too—never did I dare hope for such a pleasure. This must be—it can only be—my dear sister Evelyn. Allow me the privilege of a kinsman . . .” He lifted her hand and kissed it respectfully while she gaped in bewilderment. He greeted Lia in the same fashion, embraced me and Nefret, shook David’s hand and that of Ramses. Our surprise was so paralyzing, and his movements were so quick, that he got through the entire rigmarole without interruption. When he turned last of all to Walter, his face working with simulated emotion, I knew I had to intervene. Unfortunately, in my confusion and vexation, I said the wrong thing.
“Sethos, please! Walter doesn’t know . . . Oh, curse it!”
I did not know his real name; this alias, of all the others he had used, came easiest to me. It was the final straw for Walter. He had been more stupefied than any of us, but not so stupefied that he could not put the pieces together. He looked in silent appeal at Emerson—got no response, no denial, no protest—clapped his hand to his breast—turned white—and fell over, unconscious.
“IT WAS ONLY A FAINT,” Sethos said. “Nothing serious.”
“No thanks to you,” I said angrily. “If his heart had been weak, that might have been the end of him. You put on that performance deliberately and with malice aforethought. Shame!”
Never let it be said of me that I take the offensive in order to distract listeners from my own misdemeanors. It wouldn’t have done me a particle of good, anyhow. Emerson, whose feelings for his reprobate half-brother vacillated between grudging affection and violent annoyance, froze me with an icy blue stare.
“You were the one who administered the coup de grâce, Amelia. Walter might have been able to assimilate the existence of an unknown brother; to have that same brother identified as the criminal of whom he has heard us speak so—er—critically, finished him off.”
“Well, curse it, I don’t know his real name,” I retorted. “Since we are on that subject—”
“In retrospect, my little joke was ill-advised,” Sethos said smoothly. “I am sorry, Amelia. You know my unfortunate sense of humor. But look on the bright side, my dear, as you are so fond of doing. You were planning to tell them, weren’t you? Now it’s over and done with, and you won’t have to fret about how to break the joyous news.”
He gave me an insolent smile. To do him justice, he had not been so cool when he helped Emerson carry the unconscious man to his room. He had hovered anxiously over Walter until Nefret finished her examination and announced there was no damage to the heart. When Walter opened his eyes and muttered, “Where am I?” he stepped back, folded his arms, and tried to look unconcerned. On my advice, Nefret gave Walter a sedative, and we left him with Evelyn, who had accepted Sethos’s muttered apology with a dignified nod.
The rest of us had returned to the sitting room. Emerson served whiskey all-round. Sethos was himself again, unrepentant and unmoved. I thought he looked tired, though. Leaning back against the cushions, he sipped appreciatively at his whiskey.
“Do they know about the robbery?” he asked.
David started. “What robbery?”